It is generally known that conventional sanitary napkins have a substantially planar, elongated shape. While many older napkin shapes were substantially rectangular, having straight side edges, many newer designed sanitary napkins have been shaped to better fit the contours of a wearer's body such as in the form of an hourglass. These hourglass shaped sanitary napkins have absorbent portions wherein a maximum width is located in the product end regions, i.e. generally up to ⅙ of its length as measured inward from the distal end of the napkin. However, these napkins have been found to have several shortcomings, described as follows:
Firstly, these napkins are inefficient since they have a greater amount of absorbent material in the end regions of the sanitary napkin, which are regions where leakage rarely occur, and a lesser amount of absorbent material in a central region that is adapted to be worn between the wearer's legs.
Secondly, the excess material in the end regions and the absence of material in the region between the legs causes a deformation in the sanitary napkin, due to this material accumulation, causing discomfort of use and, which can lead to the leakage of body exudate.